Mosquitoes, fever, and even death may be some of the things that come to mind when we are asked to think about West Nile Virus. Many of us would consider mosquitoes a small tradeoff to what summer offers, but what if there was more of a risk than a bump on top of your skin and an itch? In the not-so-distant past, the West Nile virus appeared on television news across the country and alarmed its residents. But today it all seems like an afterthought. The intentions today are to cover the first discovered cases of West Nile Virus, the symptoms of West Nile Virus and finally the impact of West Nile Virus in the United States. Through the research conducted here, we hope we can all better understand how West Nile virus works. West Nile virus gets its name from its birthplace in the West Nile district. According to (Gubler, Duane, Marfin, Anthony & Petersen, Lyle, 2003), it was in 1937 that Uganda experienced its first isolated case of West Nile virus (para. 4). This first case was discovered in the blood of a woman considered febrile. According to (James Sejvar 2003): The patient presented as part of a large epidemiological study on the yellow fever virus; however, inoculation of mice with the patient's serum resulted in the isolation of a virus with physical and pathological properties similar to those of two flaviviruses, St. Louis encephalitis virus and St. Louis encephalitis virus. Japanese encephalitis B, and sharing immunological relationships with these viruses. (para. 3)West Nile virus has been determined to be a flavivirus. Flavivirus has been defined as "a type of arbovirus that causes a wide range of diseases in humans, including yellow fever, dengue fever, and West Nile fever." It is spread by ticks or mosquitoes.” (flavi...... middle of paper...... West Nile countries have been listed. Between the trips to Uganda where we were first introduced to West Nile, to the outbreaks in Israel , and finally on our own coast in New York, we covered the symptoms of West Nile and explained how scary it was to think that 70-80% of those infected had no symptoms. Through this research, we discussed the numbers. different types of West Nile that we could contract and how each played a very different role in the disease Finally, we covered the response and impact for the United States. , as well as high concentration areas (Texas, Louisiana, Illinois). to advance the cause against West Nile virus..